Google takes another small step down the evil road

As part of its strategy of being helpful and giving users the best possible information, Google used to add map links that would take you to three major mapping services: Google, Yahoo and Map Quest. Sadly, things have changed. Google no longer cares about giving users the best information. What it cares about is promoting its own services to the exclusion of rival services. So now you only get one link: Google Maps. (See Google Blogoscoped for an illustration.)

Of course, there's really nothing to complain about here. Google is a hugely rich multinational corporation and needs to keep its founders in private jets etc. It's just doing what almost any other capitalist corporation would do in serving its own ends. The only thing it needs to do to normalise things is to drop the arrogant pretence that it occupies some kind of moral high ground against "evil" rivals. In sum, Don't Be Hypocritical.

Outcry over the tips issue got Google to drop them. Clearly it heard the concerns over trust and reacted. But clearly it also didn't learn anything from that. Google failed to have an official discussion or mention of the concerns via its blog. Now we've got Google Checkout shoved at us and map links dropped, both moves that someone should have realized would raise new concerns about Google's self interest.

In technology terms, Google is rapidly becoming Big Brother, capturing more and more information about people's lives. It knows what you search for, which sites you visit (if they have Adwords), what's in your mail (at Gmail) and so on. Will you still use Google's services if it loses your trust? Or doesn't anybody care any more?